VPN Vs Citrix.... this is really a Foxpro question...

[Joe Wickers]

Hi

We are trying to decide on wether to use VPN of use GoToMypc.com. VPN
makes your home computer an actual node on the office network. GTMPC is
more like PCAnywhere, all that you see at home is the monitor of an
office PC you have connected to and that you can control.

With foxpro, if I open a very large table, how slow would this be if I
was working over a VPN? Does Foxpro buffer the data transfer and only
show me what I am loking at or does the entire table need to be passed
to my home computer for me to work with it? Hopefully you understand
what I am getting at... While VPN seems more attractive to me because I
become an actual node on my office network, I am worried that Foxpro
will be very slow with that solution, especiually on very large tables.

Thanks

Mitch

[Craig Berntson]

Since VFP is not client/server, VPN will be very slow. It works pretty much
like you said...entire files are moved to the local computer.
--
Craig Berntson
MCSD, Visual FoxPro MVP
www.craigberntson.com
Salt Lake City Fox User Group
www.slcfox.org
www.foxcentral.net

Post by Joe Wickers
Hi
We are trying to decide on wether to use VPN of use GoToMypc.com. VPN
makes your home computer an actual node on the office network. GTMPC is
more like PCAnywhere, all that you see at home is the monitor of an office
PC you have connected to and that you can control.
With foxpro, if I open a very large table, how slow would this be if I was
working over a VPN? Does Foxpro buffer the data transfer and only show me
what I am loking at or does the entire table need to be passed to my home
computer for me to work with it? Hopefully you understand what I am
getting at... While VPN seems more attractive to me because I become an
actual node on my office network, I am worried that Foxpro will be very
slow with that solution, especiually on very large tables.
Thanks
Mitch

...

[Dan Freeman]

We use a combination of the two.

Our remote employees have VPN connections for security reasons, primarily to
access internal systems like e-mail. For anything disk-based (such as
accessing a dbf), performance is glacial. For those situations, they use VNC
(similar to GTMPC) _over the VPN connection_ to access a PC here at the
office. (Our LAN admin won't open up ANYTHING he can't control. <g>)

Dan

Post by Joe Wickers
Hi
We are trying to decide on wether to use VPN of use GoToMypc.com. VPN
makes your home computer an actual node on the office network. GTMPC
is more like PCAnywhere, all that you see at home is the monitor of an
office PC you have connected to and that you can control.
With foxpro, if I open a very large table, how slow would this be if I
was working over a VPN? Does Foxpro buffer the data transfer and only
show me what I am loking at or does the entire table need to be passed
to my home computer for me to work with it? Hopefully you understand
what I am getting at... While VPN seems more attractive to me because
I become an actual node on my office network, I am worried that Foxpro
will be very slow with that solution, especiually on very large tables.
Thanks
Mitch

...

[Neil Waterworth]

Look at Terminal Services (TS). You login as yourself, get your own profile,
and the TS server does all the work (does the database stuff on the remote
computer via the LAN, but screen updates and mouse/keyboard updates are
passed through the line back to you).

Post by Joe Wickers
Hi
We are trying to decide on wether to use VPN of use GoToMypc.com. VPN
makes your home computer an actual node on the office network. GTMPC is
more like PCAnywhere, all that you see at home is the monitor of an
office PC you have connected to and that you can control.
With foxpro, if I open a very large table, how slow would this be if I
was working over a VPN? Does Foxpro buffer the data transfer and only
show me what I am loking at or does the entire table need to be passed
to my home computer for me to work with it? Hopefully you understand
what I am getting at... While VPN seems more attractive to me because I
become an actual node on my office network, I am worried that Foxpro
will be very slow with that solution, especiually on very large tables.
Thanks
Mitch

...

[rob]

You can use VNC which I think is free. Just like being sat at your desktop
Use a VPN to create a connection to your office network and then use VNC to
log onto a desktop on the network

Post by Joe Wickers
Hi
We are trying to decide on wether to use VPN of use GoToMypc.com. VPN
makes your home computer an actual node on the office network. GTMPC is
more like PCAnywhere, all that you see at home is the monitor of an
office PC you have connected to and that you can control.
With foxpro, if I open a very large table, how slow would this be if I
was working over a VPN? Does Foxpro buffer the data transfer and only
show me what I am loking at or does the entire table need to be passed
to my home computer for me to work with it? Hopefully you understand
what I am getting at... While VPN seems more attractive to me because I
become an actual node on my office network, I am worried that Foxpro
will be very slow with that solution, especiually on very large tables.
Thanks
Mitch

...

[PAul Maskens]

All thse tools have a CPU overhead, from using Citrix, Terminal Server, and
VNC we found that VNC had the highest (worst) overhead - slowing a system by
about 25%.
Not only that but VNC is a one user to one computer solution.
Where you want to serve multiple users, Terminal Server and Citrix are
better alternatives.
Citrix has far more features, and is more expensive.
Windows server and Terminal Services has a lower cost.

For our operations in 5 countries, we use centrally located terminal servers
and data servers, all on a 10GB network segment. Then 100MB out to the
routers, and 2 or 4MB to the country offices, where we use thin clients, or
PCs running Remote Desktop client.